This is Mind Bites, a series for philosophy bites with me David Edmonds.

And me Nigel Woberton.

There are lots of types of dog, Rot violas, poodles, Labradors, German Shepherds, Jack Russell Terriers, and so on.

You know what I mean when I use these terms.

But in understanding them, are you having to conjure up mental images of these various breeds?

The idea that we can understand concepts because we have some sort of image of them is philosophically

unfashionable.

But Jesse Prince thinks it's the correct account.

Jesse Prince, welcome to Mind Bites.

Very good to be here.

The topic we're going to focus on is thinking with pictures.

Now it seems to me that when I think about a dog, I get a mental image of a dog.

Why would anybody think that isn't the case?

With you, I agree this should be the default view.

I think it's the common sense view, the one we get through

introspection. But throughout the history of philosophy, especially beginning with the rationalists

in the modern period, the mental picture view came under strenuous attack. And in the the 20th century it's really been a

minority position the majority of philosophers have believed that we don't

think in pictures we think in something more like words so let's go with the

rationalists why would anybody argue that when I'm thinking like that there

is no image in my head?

Well, for someone like Descartes who was very mistrustful of the senses, he was concerned that when we see things, when he visualize things,

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